Author: Karabekian Emil

PRESS OFFICE
Department of Communications
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 160; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

March 9, 2007
___________________

ST. VARTAN CAMP OFFERS FAITH, FRIENDSHIP, AND FUN

Summer is just around the corner, and with the sunshine will come the summer
camp season. The Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) will
once again offer two unique camping experiences: the Midwest Hye Camp and
St. Vartan Camp in Upstate New York.

Registration for St. Vartan Camp 2007 has begun. There are three two-week
sessions. The dates for Session A are June 24 to July 7, Session B will run
from July 8 to July 21, and Session C covers July 22 to August 4. Session B
is already filled!

Entering its 27th year, St. Vartan Camp provides a well-rounded blend of
Armenian religion, culture, language, history, dance, music, arts, and
fellowship, as well as a full sports program that includes soccer,
basketball, softball, volleyball, tennis, and swimming. The program also
includes special daily activities such as dances, talent shows, camp
Olympics, theme days, nature hikes, and campfires. Campers range in age
from 8 to 15.

St. Vartan Camp will once again be held at its permanent home: The Ararat
Youth and Conference Center in upstate New York. And this year the campers
will take advantage of a new pavilion and five new classrooms being built at
the Ararat Center.

"We are very excited about the addition of our newly constructed pavilion
and classrooms," said Fr. Krikor Sabounjian, director of St. Vartan Camp.
"This will allow us much more flexibility for creative programming."

LOOKING FOR STAFF

St. Vartan Camp is staffed by counselors who have been specially chosen from
throughout the Diocese based on their devotion to Armenian youth. Fr.
Sabounjian said the camp is looking for qualified staff who will be positive
Christian role models and encouraged interested people to apply.

"Whether in the classroom or on the sports field; at the pool or in an
activity; in the dining room or in the dorms, everything that we do will be
designed to promote lessons in Christian living," he said. "And to that
effect, we are looking for staff members who will create an atmosphere in
which we all can learn to live a Christian lifestyle."

Additionally, the camp offers a counselor-in-training program for qualified
young people between 16 and 17 years old. CITs will participate in a
leadership training program that includes both "on-the-job" training through
working with staff and campers and daily leadership and team-building
classes. CITs must apply to be accepted to the program.

Anyone interested in joining the St. Vartan Camp staff, serving as a CIT, or
sending their children to the camp can find more information and register
on-line at Additional information can be found by
contacting Lydia Kurkjian, the camp office coordinator, by e-mailing
[email protected] or by calling (212) 686-0710, ext 142.

HYE CAMP

While registration for Midwest Hye Camp is not open yet, the one-week camp
is already being planned.

This year’s Hye Camp will run from July 29 to August 4, 2007, in Ingelside,
Illinois. More information can be found on-line at

— 3/09/07

Merrick Herald, NY
March 8 2007

A class in war and peace

By Scott Brinton

Renowned cellist Lutz Rath spluttered a five-minute series of
nonsensical consonants and vowels as he stood hunched over the
lectern in Calhoun High School’s auditorium last Thursday.

The roughly 100 students before him, in grades 10 to 12, were
laughing hysterically, particularly when Rath raised his tightly
clenched fist and bellowed with greater oomph.

With his flamboyant gestures and quasi-militaristic intonation, Rath
could have been Adolf Hitler. And that was precisely the effect he
was going for.

Rath was performing excerpts from Dada artist Kurt Schwitters’s
"Ursonata," a 40-minute "sound poem" that makes no sense. The 1924
piece, which is nothing more than babble, is intended to be humorous.
At the same time, it perfectly mimics the hateful, bellicose rants of
the fascists like Hitler, said Rath, who was born in 1945 in Germany
during an Allied air raid.

Rath was one of five musicians from the Long Island Philharmonic who
came to Calhoun to perform "Forbidden Music: Music from the
Holocaust." The 45-minute show ran through a handful of works by
artists and composers who were banned in Germany during the Nazi era,
including Schwitters, Viktor Ullman and Gideon Klein.

The quintet finished with the "Terezin Ghetto Requiem." Written by
Czech composer Sylvie Bodorová in 1954, the piece incorporates Jewish
Hebrew psalms and Latin Catholic liturgy in paying homage to the
victims of Terezin, a walled city in Czechoslovakia that the Nazis
turned into a concentration camp.

The Calhoun students were mesmerized. They came from 10th-grade
global studies classes and the Voices of the Past course, a yearlong
elective developed by Calhoun social studies teacher David Goldberg
and English teacher Julie Beth Walz in 2005. The class examines past
genocides, including the Holocaust, with an eye toward protecting
human rights in the future. Goldberg arranged for the Long Island
Philharmonic performance, with a grant from the Nassau Board of
Cooperative Educational Services.

Goldberg, who is in a social-studies education doctorate program at
Columbia University’s Teachers College, said Voices of the Past aims
to show students the horrors of genocide and war to help them
understand that the world can be a very dangerous place, and that
they must stay abreast of current events to ensure that human rights
are preserved across the globe.

To prevent future genocides, Goldberg said the "solutions are
awareness and political pressure. Those are the forces that have
changed history."

Walz, who earned her master’s in English education from Columbia,
said, "Every kid at Calhoun High School should take this class. It’s
life skills. It’s one of those real-world courses."
Walz believes the course imbues students with a greater sense of
empathy. She tells them that they need to inform an adult if they see
bullying, noting that all genocides have begun with smaller violent
acts that eventually led to widespread slaughter.
Lorraine Lupinskie-Huvane, Calhoun’s social studies chairwoman, said
the Holocaust and other genocides are taught in global studies
classes, but she said Voices of the Past, which is open to students
in grades 10 to 12, looks at issues of human rights with far greater
depth. "The opportunities that the teachers can provide through this
course aren’t necessarily what they can get through their other
classes," she said.

In addition to the Holocaust, Voices of the Past examines:

n The Armenian genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Armenians died
at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.

n The Rwandan genocide, in which nearly a million members of the
Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes were butchered by extremist Hutu
militias in 1994.

n The Darfur genocide, in which 400,000 civilians have been killed by
the Sudanese government since 2003 in an ongoing conflict between
Sudanese military forces and two rebel groups in Darfur.

Voices students meet daily. One day they study with Goldberg and the
next with Walz. Goldberg focuses on the history of genocide, while
Walz looks at the feelings of individuals caught in war through poems
and newspaper articles. Goldberg said the course goes beyond textbook
study with hands-on learning experiences such as the "Forbidden
Music" concert. He added that a Holocaust survivor and Rwandan
genocide survivor recently spoke in his class.
The course also looks at efforts to achieve world peace. On Feb. 28,
seven students telephoned a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer stationed in
Zambia, in southeast Africa. The Peace Corps paid for the conference
call through its Coverdell World Wise Schools Program, for which
Goldberg applied to participate.

Gregg Hayward, an agricultural and environmental education Peace
Corps volunteer from New Hampshire, spoke about the challenges that
he faces living in a remote village in a developing nation. He also
encouraged students to learn about other cultures. "Keep your eyes
open," Hayward told them as they sat in a circle around a
speakerphone in a small social studies office on Calhoun’s second
floor. "The one thing no one can take from you is your education.
Keep getting educated, and always be open to being educated by other
people. You open your own doors."

Students said the course has changed their global outlook. Senior
Kristen Rudkoski said, "I sort of thought I knew what was going on in
the world." But now Rudkoski realizes she has much to learn.
"Children are the future, and we’re going off to college soon," she
said. "We need to be aware of what’s going on in the world."

Senior Brittany Onorato said the visit by the Holocaust and Rwandan
genocide survivors, in particular, affected her. "They explained
their stories, their struggle, how they overcame their struggle,"
Onorato said. "It really opens your eyes to what happened. You could
see the emotion in their faces."

And junior Kathryn Perafan described Voices of the Past as a
"life-changing" course. "It makes me feel I need to do more to help
out other people," she said.

FIRST DAY OF PERINCEK TRIAL IN LAUSANNE; TURKISH SUPPORTERS DENIED ENTRY

Hurriyet, Turkey
March 7 2007

The first hearing in the trial of Dogu Perincek, the leader of the
Turkish Workers’ Party who has been charged by Swiss prosecutors
with publicly denying the Armenian genocide allegations, took place
yesterday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

A large contingency of Perincek supporters who left Turkey 2 days
ago to show support for Perincek during his trial were not allowed by
Swiss authorities into the courtroom yesterday. Turkish journalists
were also barred by security from entered the Lausanne Courthouse,
on grounds that written accreditation had not been received beforehand.

It is expected that Perincek’s trial will continue until March 9. If
found guilty, Perincek is to serve 3 years in prison and pay a heavy
financial fine.

In statements made earlier this week to the Swiss newspaper "Le
Matin," Perincek asserted that he had come prepared with many WWI-era
documents from various countries, and that he would prove in court
that what occured in Turkey during those contested years was not in
fact genocide.

FORTHCOMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS WILL BE DECISIVE FOR ARMENIAN PEOPLE, ARMENIAN WOMEN LEADERS CONSIDER

Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian public has never been so
much humiliated and so much unprotected, as solutions and decisions
are thrusted upon it in country’s foreign and home political
spheres. Lyudmila Haroutiunian, Chairwoman of Arzhanapatvutiun
(Dignity) Party, expressed such an opinion at the March 7 press
conference. As L. Haroutiunian estimated, the power is not changed
in Armenia of people’s own free will, it is reproduced by the
very power. In her words, no free and transparent elections will
be held in Armenia until the Armenian public becomes honorable and
the latter’s subordination to force, money and other circumstances
is liquidated. "Today’s split of political forces, the fact that the
opposition failed to consolidate speaks about the state of the Armenian
public," the Chairwoman of the Arzhanapatvutiun Party said. In the
words of RA MP, member of RPA Board Hermine Naghdalian, holding of
free and fair elections is possible in the country if every one takes
his vote under his care and takes part in the elections. In her words,
the country’s development in the coming years depends on the upcoming
parliamentary elections. H. Naghdalian is convinced that like many
countries Armenia can also efficiently pass the way of democratization,
as from one election to another not only those being elected but
also electors change. In the opinion of member of PPA Political
Board Ruzan Khachatrian, "if the figures changed from one election
to another, today we would have a little more democratic, free and
safe country." In her words, unless the forthcoming parliamentary
elections are held well and if a negative estimation is formed,
the country will appear in much more complicated situation."

TURK GOES ON TRIAL IN SWITZERLAND FOR DENYING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

International Herald Tribune, France
March 7 2007

GENEVA: A Turkish politician went on trial Tuesday in Switzerland for
denying that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during
World War I amounted to genocide.

Dogu Perincek, head of the Turkish Workers’ Party, called the Armenian
genocide "an international lie" during a speech in the Swiss city of
Lausanne in July 2005.

The state prosecutor has called for a six month prison term for
violating a 1995 Swiss law that bans denying, belittling or justifying
any genocide. The maximum penalty is three years.

Perincek told the Lausanne criminal court that there had been no
genocide against Armenians, but there had been "reciprocal massacres,"
according to Swiss Radio.

"I defend my right to freedom of expression," Swiss Radio quoted
Perincek, 65, as saying in German. "There was no genocide, therefore
this law cannot apply to my remarks."

The case has further soured relations between Switzerland and Turkey.

Ankara criticized the decision to prosecute the case and later canceled
an official visit in 2005 by Joseph Deiss, who was the economy minister
at the time.

If found guilty, Perincek would become the first person to be convicted
under the law. Twelve Turks were acquitted of similar charges in 2001.

Turkey denies charges by Armenia and other countries that 1.5 million
Armenians died in a systematic genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks
beginning in 1915.

Turkey says that hundreds of thousands of both Muslim Turks and
Christian Armenians died in a conflict during the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire.

A verdict is expected Friday.

COMMENTARY: TIME FOR TV DETOX
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large

United Press International
March 5 2007

WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) — The bilious index is up in America as
television commercials resort to mindless anger to sell their wares.

A Snickers ad featured two plug-ugly bruisers chomping at either end
of a candy bar until their lips touched and kissed accidentally —
and then quickly tearing clumps of hair from their chests to prove
their virility.

TV "shockvertising" is now an "edgy" amalgam of someone zapped by
a meteorite while waiting to disembark at his office on the moon;
real car crashes; passengers side-swiped and tossed around like
crash-test dummies; a car that terrorizes and attacks a lovesome
pink piggy bank; everybody slaps each other hard in the face; a guy
throws a rock at somebody’s head; a couple driving at night pick up
a hitchhiker carrying a large ax (and some beer), followed later by a
second hitchhiker with a chainsaw; a sky diver sans parachute throws
himself out of a plane to chase a six-pack of beer.

Civility appears to have been relegated to a quaint custom of
yesteryear. Cruel and callous are traits to be admired. Mind-numbing
violence is a-okay and healthy. The country came to love a murderous
crime boss named Soprano. Good characters are bad ones. To peddle
something in a television commercial these days the take-no-prisoners,
arrogant salesman must make the prospective buyer feel like a
twittering half moron.

Sex is ubiquitous in sitcoms and docudramas — only raunchier. Paris
Hilton and Britney Spears and now their countless imitators can’t
seem to get out of the front seat of a sports car without giving the
paparazzi a well-waxed view sans panties.

TV commercials, blogs and YouTube send subliminal messages that say
sex is power and money. The new feminist movement in cyberspace seems
to be raw sex for raw power. Invasive cosmetic surgery for teenagers
is part of the unwholesome mix. Stats for Botox injections, chemical
peels, laser hair removal, are all up year over year. "Who needs brains
when you have these?" proclaims the T-shirt on a well-endowed teenager.

When teenage sex no longer shocked, the envelope pushers dabbled with
the menage a trios and intergenerational sex. But that didn’t last
long either. So it’s back to violence.

There are now some 16 million suffering from "explosive rage disorder,"
according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The endless
gory details of Iraqi horrors on television news and documentaries
have also contributed. Orlando, Disney World HQ, is now the angriest
city in America and Manchester, N.H., the least angry, according to
a Men’s Health magazine index. One would expect New York City with
all its hustle and bustle and frustrations in inclement weather to
occupy a high in the survey; it was only 57th angriest.

Good news for some and a dirge for others is word that rap music
has gone into a tailspin after climbing off the charts for the past
30 years. In a study by the Black Youth Project, the majority of
youngsters said rap videos were too violent. Another poll by AP and
AOL-Black Voices said 50 percent of respondents judged hip-hop cadences
"a negative force in American society." "You don’t come to the hood
no more" and ghetto revivals fail to captivate as they once did.

So all is not lost. Hip hop hoodlums still seek events to terrorize —
e.g., last month’s NBA All-Star Game — but resistance now mobilizes
to ridicule the troublemakers.

Study after study has demonstrated that children exposed to violent
TV shows were more likely to be convicted of crime later in life. And
women who OD’ed on TV violence threw things at their husbands and men
were more likely to beat up their wives. And these women are also at
increased risk of heart disease, according to cardiologists at Los
Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

>>From TV advertising to video games, acts of violence, even if only
violent spoofs in commercials, are woven in and out of the viewing
fabric. By the time a youth reaches 18, he/she has witnessed 32,000
murders, 40,000 attempted homicides, and 200,000 acts of violence.

Couple that with news reporting on wars and civil strife, and for some,
violence, even murder, becomes an acceptable solution to problems.

TV commercials are only one medium for the 3,000 advertisements that
most people are exposed to daily. Cross-marketing of products linked
to TV shows and movies, radio, online in cyberspace, static and mobile
billboards, even airline barf bags, are some of the others.

Last month, the Federal Communications Commission issued a report,
two years overdue, mandated by Congress that suggests a law that
would let the FCC regulate violent programming, the way it supposedly
regulates sexual content and profanity. No one thought this would
get much beyond defining "excessive violence."

One can plausibly argue that violence is in the human DNA. In the
20th century alone, the Russo-Japanese war, two world wars, the
Russian civil war, the Armenian genocide, the Abyssinian conquest,
the Spanish Civil War, India’s partition, the French Indo-China war,
the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Algerian War, China’s Cultural
Revolution, the Iraq-Iran war, the Rwanda genocide, and a few others,
caused well over 100 million killed.

Over the centuries, some historians estimate the number of killed
"in the cause of Christianity" at more than one billion, which
would make Muslims less sanguinary than Christians. In 5,000 years
of recorded history, there have been some 6,500 wars, many of them
taking a million lives each.

For couch potatoes, ignorance is bliss. According to the Sourcebook
for Teaching Science, the number of hours per day TV is on in an
average U.S. home is 6 hours 47 minutes. Number of minutes per week
parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5.

Percentage of Americans that watch TV while eating dinner: 66
percent. Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps
precipitate real life mayhem: 79 percent. But they don’t connect the
dots. So TV detox is long overdue.

PanARMENIAN.Net

In Budapest sentence was passed upon a murderer with no nationality

Murder of an Armenian doesn’t carry punishment in Azerbaijan.
Clear-cut borders are established between the Armenians and the rest
of the whole world in this country.
24.02.2007 GMT+04:00

The Court of Appeal in Hungary left the verdict of Budapest City Court
of 13 April 2006 in power, according to which Ramil Safarov, the
murderer of the Officer of the Armenian Armed Forces Gurgen Margaryan
is sentenced to life imprisonment. The court, as it could be expected
rejected Azerbaijan’s appeal for reconsideration of the case. It
should be mentioned that the Coordinating Committee for Ramil
Safarov’s rights is intending to appeal to the European Court of Human
Rights, though Armenia has more reasons for it.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In the opinion of the Azeri Mass Media `Court’s
decision was biased, as neither the additional proves provided by
Azerbaijan, nor the new circumstances were taken into
consideration…’ There are two possible explanations for the given
situation: either Azerbaijan doesn’t realize why Safarov was judged,
or it is trying to increase the hatred towards the Armenians. Yet the
Hungarian Court acted according to laws existing in any country –
sentence was passed upon a murderer with no nationality and not an
Azerbaijani having killed an Armenian. The fact that Baku is probably
well aware of the above mentioned facts, does not keep the
Azerbaijanis away from announcing that the court’s decision was unjust
and that Safarov is just a martyr, or almost a soldier fighting for
justice, this is much easier than admitting once guilt. By the way,
let us mention that killing an Armenian doesn’t carry punishment in
Azerbaijan. Clear-cut borders are established between the Armenians
and the rest of the whole world in this country. Only for some reasons
Hungary respects laws recognized in the whole world and not in
Azerbaijan only, which consequently gives rise to resentments.

According to the Azeri attorney Shirinova the prosecutor almost failed
to contradict the facts indicated in the appeal – he only denied them
and rejected the appeal. But what did this word almost mean? This is
not the appropriate term to be used in this sphere. Safarov had no
extenuating circumstances, in spite of the attempts to make him out an
injudicious person, who couldn’t be responsible for his acts and
words. It’s worth mentioning that besides life imprisonment Safarov
received another term for scuffling with the prison guard.

Meanwhile Safarov’s father’s remarks are worth mentioning; `We always
make a fuss about nothing. The Armenians use the arguments which may
be heard in Azerbaijan for their own purposes. In due time the
Hungarian journalists were invited to Azerbaijan, but they didn’t meet
Safarov’s family, so the consequences were not unexpected, as
Azerbaijan didn’t take any serious steps. Ministry of Defence never
displayed any interest in the course of events. They only provided the
attorneys with some financial support a day before sending them to
Budapest. I think that this sentence is passed not on my son, but on
whole Azerbaijan.’

Comments are needless. Only what does the European Court of Human
Rights have to do with all this?

PanARMENIAN.Net» analytical department

IN ARARAT ZURABIAN’S WORDS, OPPOSITION WILL UNITE AFTER ELECTIONS, IN
RALLY STRUGGLE

YEREVAN, MARCH 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The proportional and majoritarian lists
of the Armenian National Movement (ANM) party are not finally defined
yet. Ararat Zurabian, the ANM Board Chairman stated about it at the
March 2 press conference. In his words, they did not manage to make a
pre-electoral alliance with the "Zharangutiun" (Heritage) and NDU
parties because of "small disagreements." In A.Zurabian’s words, it
would be "the most serious political unification" in the case of
formation of that unite. In A.Zurabian’s opinion, the authorities will
improve methodology of electoral falsifications to have absolute
majority at the National Assembly. And the opposing forces, in his
words, will unite during the post-electoral period when uprising will
take place connected with it, and they will choose organization of
mass events, rallies, as the way of struggle. The ANM member mentioned
that he advised his friends-members of the "Alternative"
public-political initiative to participate in the coming parliamentary
elections with the ANM list but not with the list of the alliance
called "Impeachment." In A.Zurabian’s words "The ANM will be ANM even
in 50 years, and "Impeachment" is just a slogan, way of struggle,
one-step operation."

Price on Gold Jumped up 1.9%

Arminfo
2007-03-02 22:40:00

On 4-25 February, price on 1 gr of gold jumped up 1.9% making up
7595.53 AMD in Armenia, the State Treasury of Precious Metals and
Stones provided ArmInfo with the data.

As per the source, price on platinum jumped up 1.3% making up 13705.29
AMD/1gr. The price on silver added 3.8% making up 158.15AMD/1gr.
However, price on palladium fell by 3.6% making up 3865.14 AMD/1gr.

AS AN ECONOMY BLOSSOMS AN ANCIENT CAPITAL SUFFOCATES
by Mariam Harutunian

Agence France Presse — English
March 1, 2007 Thursday 5:04 AM GMT

Waking one cold winter morning, Yerevan resident Susanna Pogosian
drew back the curtains and got a shock: workmen had razed the trees
opposite her home, literally overnight.

"Trees that had stood there for decades were lying on the ground. We
were all in shock. It happened right in front of the eyes of the
police, who didn’t lift a finger," said Pogosian, recalling the day
last month when the trees in the nearby playground were cut down.

Residents of this ex-Soviet republic are finding that after the dire
economic straits they experienced in the 1990s, the runaway growth
they now enjoy also has a downside: destruction of greenery and
creeping desertification.

The Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse brought this country a war with
neighbouring Azerbaijan and the shut-down of factories, but also the
destruction of thousands of trees as energy supplies failed and people
scoured the hills for fuel.

The war has since been replaced by an uneasy ceasefire and despite
closed borders with both Azerbaijan and Turkey, the economy is on
the rise, thanks partly to investment by emigres from Russia and the
United States.

Economic growth in Armenia has averaged 10 percent annually for the
last 10 years, according to the World Bank, and last year’s growth
rate was 13.4 percent, according to official statistics.

But this upswing has not been matched by improved governance in the
Armenian capital, where poor oversight means that the land is drying
up in and around this city of some 1.2 million people.

Yerevan, famous for the pink colouring of city centre buildings, dates
from before the eighth century BC and, like many Soviet urban centres,
has since seen a sprawl of high-rise apartment blocks on the outskirts.

Residents take pride in the lush city centre parks and in Yerevan’s
unique position, within sight of nearby Mount Ararat, a revered
national symbol that actually lies in Turkey.

But now they find desert animals such as snakes and scorpions
increasingly turning up in their apartment blocks located in the
valley in which Yerevan was built.

Pogosian says she and others fought a legal battle to prevent the
development near her house, but to no avail and the foundations are
now being dug.

"A well-known businessman caught sight of the land, and wants to build
a hotel complex… Eventually, as he had a permit from the ministry
for nature protection, they decided to carry out their barbaric plans
at night," she said.

Ecologist Karine Danielian, of Yerevan’s State University, says the
city has lost 12 percent of its green space in recent years.

"Big businesses have built on any large or small space between
buildings," said Danielian.

"The capital is reverting to semi-desert with all the climatic
characteristics, flora and fauna that implies…. The tall buildings
appearing in the centre reduce air circulation. The city is being
suffocated," she said.

The head of the city’s environmental protection department, Avet
Martirosian, says he is concerned by the loss of green space and
developers are now required to plant additional trees and grass when
they build.

City authorities also plan an ambitious "re-greening" programme.

This will include planting 50,000 trees and 30,000 shrubs, with
special attention paid to restoring vines and creepers that once
covered many buildings, shielding them from noise, dust and the sun,
says Martirosian.

He says 150,000 dollars (114,000 euros) has been allocated to growing
saplings at a nearby nursery, including varieties that can cope
with pollution.

Under the plans, the amount of green territory in the city will
increase by 4,500 hectares (11,000 acres) by 2020, he says.

This does not satisfy ecologists or sceptical local residents in a
country where corruption and poor governance are serious problems
however.

Danielian says that the new saplings will be no replacement for the
mature trees that are being lost. "Why should we repeat the mistakes
other cities have made?" she queried.

Local resident Aik Bersegian, a 60-year-old mechanic, is also
distrustful: "These plans only exist on paper. The authorities
adopted a law on protecting the environment but themselves don’t
respect it. It’s happening in front of our eyes."